Can shopping malls be used to sustain - or even fund - culture? China's model offers a way forward, but not a bulletproof solution.
'In the West, we tend to think of shopping malls as fluorescent-lit wastelands, full of soulless mega stores and overfed consumers; we certainly don’t think of them as appropriate venues for high culture, but the success of various art malls in China should give us reason to pause. Land developers in China mixing art and retail, with the original intention of adding prestige to their properties, have inadvertently discovered an interesting funding model that the cultural industry would be wise to appropriate.
While museums in the west spend countless hours trying to solicit donations from collectors and sponsors and fretting over government cuts, land developers such as Shui On, the group behind Shanghai’s landmark retail complex Xintiandi, fund their programming through the rent and sales of their tenants. Long before the e-commerce had cast its dark shadow across the retail environment, China’s land developers recognized the importance of culture in maintaining brand resilience.' ...Keep reading on China Now
'In the West, we tend to think of shopping malls as fluorescent-lit wastelands, full of soulless mega stores and overfed consumers; we certainly don’t think of them as appropriate venues for high culture, but the success of various art malls in China should give us reason to pause. Land developers in China mixing art and retail, with the original intention of adding prestige to their properties, have inadvertently discovered an interesting funding model that the cultural industry would be wise to appropriate.
While museums in the west spend countless hours trying to solicit donations from collectors and sponsors and fretting over government cuts, land developers such as Shui On, the group behind Shanghai’s landmark retail complex Xintiandi, fund their programming through the rent and sales of their tenants. Long before the e-commerce had cast its dark shadow across the retail environment, China’s land developers recognized the importance of culture in maintaining brand resilience.' ... Keep reading on China Now